Why I Hate Kobe

DISCLAIMER: I’m a wounded Celtics fan. I don’t even claim to know a ton about basketball or the NBA. But I do know a douchebag when I see one. And sorry, this might be more for me then for ya’ll.

For years, watching Kobe play (typically in the playoffs) has given me a nasty kind of tight feeling in my stomach. Disregarding games where the C’s are involved, I still get that feeling when it looks like he might beat other teams. I just kind of hate seeing him get what he wants. But why?

I don’t think it’s a sheer talent/watching my boys lose thing, I really don’t, because I don’t hate Pau like this (even though he looks like a recreational heroin user). I never hated Shaq like this (even though Glen Davis is my favorite +6′ first grader). Like Derek Jeter: sometimes I hate what he did to my team but hearing the man’s’ name doesn’t get my Irish up. Kobe is… different.

Long ago, sometime after he refused to sign with the team that drafted him and bitched his way onto a team with a more obvious playoff shot, but before he nicknamed HIMSELF “Black Mamba”, Kobe decided that he was gonna be Michael Jordan. (By the way, he nicknamed himself “Black Mamba” AFTER he was charged with sexual assault. Awesome.) I don’t mean play like Jordan, put up numbers like Jordan, or win rings like Jordan, I mean BE Jordan. If you don’t believe me take a closer look at Kobe’s vamping anytime ANYTHING happens (this man abuses the fact that cameras are constantly on him for reaction shots more than any player I’ve ever seen, something in the LA water has made him realize that every play is a future poster opportunity). Or how he’ll grab his teammates heads and scream inspirational bullshit at them. Or how he hangs onto Phil Jackson (a man who he nearly ran out of town, who has called him “uncoachable”, and who revealed that Kobe used to sabotage his own high school games to keep them close) like a newborn with a tit.

Apparently unsatisfied to simply play amazing basketball, something Kobe does do well, and let the sportscasters make the comparisons, he instead decided to focus on constructing an entirely fake image for himself. I don’t know if Michael Jordan was a good teammate or fun to be around. I know he never ran a teammate out of town (shit, he managed to help keep Dennis Rodman on planet earth), he never called out a fellow teammate as a cheater in an attempt to get the cops to drop AND hide your sexual assault charge (oops, sorry Shaq, it slipped out) and he never looked some kids with a camera in their faces and bitched out a member of his own team “Andrew Bynum? What the f—?” Bryant says in disgust. “Are you kidding me? Andrew Bynum? F—ing ship his ass out. Are you kidding me?” (how the fuck does Bynum continue PLAYING with this asshole?). Now, because Kobe has learned that passing earns him a different kind of gold star, and he calls his teammates his “brothers”, we’re supposed to pretend he’s a team player.

What we’re really dealing with here is a spoiled brat, raised in Europe and pretending to be from Philly, who refused to earn a reputation on a small-market team, hissy-fitted his way on to the Lakers, where he proceeded to get whatever he wanted (after a year or two) because Shaq was about to be old anyway, and then took his very real, unbelievable talent (along with Jerry Buss’s willingness to give him whatever he wants and the league’s willingness to give the Lakers whatever they want), and bought himself some “brothers” with the promise of finals rings (and some help from the Celtics). Maybe that’s why I don’t like Kobe… all of that privileged attitude, inside-fixing, and “brotherly” play-acting just reminds me of L.A.

Oh, wait.